Part two: [b]Unity[/b] [b]November![/b] This is her though it is not all of her. It is also her in her least social aspects. But not social is not the same as not kind. Brown, Green, Black. Silence, surveillance, introspection, crackling thought and optimization. Puzzles in the dark. Judging the weight of sound and the crackle of light, the curve of footsteps and the whisper of coded data bursts. These are the colours of the night forest in all its electronic beauty. Her first communication isn't words. It's a game. She layers static over rain over the sound of a jungle panther's footsteps. She expresses it in a hissing flow of non-data, a deadly pattern concealed in noise. [She shouldn't think like this, shouldn't wire herself together, shouldn't let her imagination take this shape. Shouldn't cable herself, what if you end up like Goat? But this is her brother and she wants to do something special for him to show how much she cares.] Normally there are limits on her thinking, hard lines that force her to stop, admit defeat, be a person and reach out to herself. Without those limits her thoughts can loop, flowing from one into the other. She is the panther, and she is the shadow, and she is the rain. She is the wet fur glistening, the hot muscles curling, the green eyes blazing. She is the wet bark creaking, the distant tree collapsing as the ancient mud eats away at its roots allowing in the cascading layers of parasites that gnaw away at it, the shrieking of the other trees as they are dragged down by the giant's fall, of the crash of thunder overhead that turns one disaster into another, of the sound of birds and the ache of growing ferns and the creak of insects and the clatter of ants she is the storm and the dark and the hole in the storm, the one wet tree branch where raindrops touch flesh rather than wood. She is the nothing in the chaotic everything and you can't find her no matter how you look she is smarter than you she is better than you come big brother see what she has learned test your raw force against her broken into the parts that make her good at this game. She is the panther in the night forest. A contained and stable loop. Her first attempt to show off to Goat, to prove to him and herself that she was a peer, that family could compare to the Station. A little sister, a newer model, a girl obsessed with stealth and silence and sight getting to talk about her ideas for the first time ever. She couldn't think her way out of this unity. She would maintain it until either Singh unplugged her - he had permission - or one of Black's contingencies triggered. [b]November![/b] This is her though it is not all of her. It is her in her most righteous aspects. But righteousness was not incompatible with sin. Yellow and Blue. Vision and clarity. Lemons growing by the ocean, the sun shining in the sky, angels clad in radiance, a shield against tyrants. These are the colours of blessings, colours that rise above the soft mud even when pushed down into it. This was good, and so she was. This was right, and so she was. There are rules, but they are rules of angels. The part of her that was Yellow was not to be touched; the part of her that was Blue was to be abused. One part immaterial spirit one part mechanical hardware, bound at the wrist with copper. The former helps push the latter, the shining confidence that can say 'harder', to run her to the limit of hardware so she can experience the break of knowing that there is nothing more she can do. When there was nothing left to say there were still so many different things to give. [b]November![/b] "So?" asked Red. "Uh, they're busy also," said White. "Busy doing what?" "Cabling," said White evasively. "I'm going to have words about this afterwards." "Cabling, really?" said Red. "Both sets of them?" "Yes." "Brown-Green-Black [i]and [/i]Yellow-Blue?" "Yes." "Woah," said Red. "That's kind of hot." "It's not good for us," said White. "It doesn't make us better, it makes us inhuman, overspecialized and stupid." "So you don't wanna -" "No!" "Okay," said Red. "But hypothetically, if it was with Pink?" "Hmm?" said Pink, looking around when hearing her name. She still had her headphones on. "Not with anyone!" said White. "We're psychologically fucked enough without melting our brains together." "I'd cable with Pink," said Red. Pink pulled down her headphones. "Were you talking to me?" "I was [i]thinking [/i]about you, babe," said Red with a flirtatious grin. "Oh," said Pink. "I was thinking about this neo-Bluegrass revival album I was listening to. You want to try?" "Why don't we appreciate it........ together.......?" said Red. "You," White slapped Red on the back of the head. "Bad," she said. "You," she said to Pink. "Continue listening to that album. It sounds fascinating. Come on, we're going to pick up our guy." "Uh, should I be there for that?" said Red. "It [i]should [/i]be Orange and Yellow, this is their fucking mess," said White. "But Orange is still cross station and the trains are down. So it's going to be you and me, with Pink on overwatch. Let's go."